Those of you who know my teaching and research agenda know that cultural competency is a BIG platform for me. My colleague K.H. in Chicago asked me to contribute to a book on couples of African descent and sex, love, and intimacy. My chapter will be on inter-cultural couples of African descent. I think I'm well-versed in cultural competency in terms of teaching my social work students about how to learn about, interact with, respect, etc. other cultures. But I have to say my own cultural competency with my husband's culture still baffles me! For those of you who don't know, he is Cameroonian (West African) and many Africans have very nice and unique traditions and they also have some specific ways in which family members should interact. I am married to the youngest son, his eldest brother is visiting, his oldest female cousin is also visiting....I know there's something I'm supposed to do, my husband doesn't always buy into the African family traditions, etc. so he just keeps saying "do what you want to do" (his family would consider him to be Americanized) and that is fine AND I also want to be sure I honor the birth order of his brother and cousin. Did I also mention that my husband is the chosen head of family and so our son is the next-in-line to the family "throne" so to speak! So I have some other role I should be doing as wife to the head of family and mother of this child, but who knows what that is! :-)
I decided to do what I think crosses cultures and boundaries and unknown spaces (which is what I would tell a student to do), I'm making fried & baked chicken, macaroni and cheese, greens, corn bread and fried catfish because where my family is from that's how you welcome and honor others - goes southern food! If you're in MA next week, stop by and partake with us, you'll get to see the full circle of cultural food.
As for what else I should be doing, I guess I'm not going to worry about it because as in all families there will be someone I'm sure to guide me and someone to snide about how I'm not doing it right! :-) God bless our families!
I work in tanzania and the co-director of my project is Tanzanian. He's married to an american woman and I often wonder how the cultural stuff works out. I lived with them for 6 months when I was on sabbatical and saw some of the clash first-hand. It makes for such a rich life, but also challenging. My husband is 20 years older than me and from a different part of the country so our generational/cultural gap is definitely amusing at times. Those differences are really fun and make my field work interesting on so many levels in addition to the science. Thanks for sharing this!
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